One-of-a-kind Souvenir
by Obfuscatress
Summary: Somehow Bridget never expected motherhood to amount to her sitting on the toilet seat cover in her underwear with the remnants of a cocktail drying in her hair and William's milky vomit running down her stomach. All she'd tried to do is brush her teeth.


Somehow Bridget never expected motherhood to amount to her sitting on the toilet seat cover in her underwear with the remnants of a cocktail drying in her hair and William's milky vomit running down her stomach. All she'd tried to do is brush her teeth.

"Oh shit," Bridget shouts when she realises what the sudden warm spill on her skin is, instinctively wiping at it with her hand to keep it from seeping into her baby's onesie, but it's already far too late. The sudden rush of emotions - disgust at the slick glide of her hand, desperation for the never ending laundry pile this is going to contribute to, relief over the fact this was the reason for the look of discomfort on her son's ever expressive face instead of something serious - eventually settles into resignation, a smile offered to her baby and her left hand stuck under a running tap.

It feels comfortably catastrophic like the chaos of her life has been preparing her for this all along. Five weeks of sleepless nights and various bodily fluids drying down her arms and over her shoulders, shirt after shirt after shirt discarded in a laundry basket, and yet it seems Mark Darcy is the one out of his depth being weed on at three in the morning when she's too tired to cackle at his perplexed expression. Still, they've managed to stumble through it all clinging to one another.

Bridget spits a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink wipes the rest of it on the back of her hand. William gurgles in her arms and she coos at him, dabbing his mouth with wet paper. "Did you vomit all over Mummy again? That's not a very nice thing to do, you know," she tells him, "but I'll forgive you because I love you very much and really you're expected to be chaotic with a Mum like me."

Downstairs the front door sounds. Bridget can tell its muffled, someone trying to open and close it as quietly as possible, because waking the baby is a fatal mistake, they've learned.

She returns her attention to Will. "That must be your Dad. He's a good man, but you know that. Sometimes when Mummy makes a horrible mess, he sorts it all out, and sometimes when he gets himself all tied up in knots, Mummy fixes that for him. And sometimes he's a darling and runs to the shop for milk."

"Bridget," Mark Darcy half shouts from the stairs. His footsteps echo down the corridor, William's head turning to follow the sound. In another lifetime she might've gone into a frenzy trying to find something to cover herself with, but now she only glances up at him when Mark stops in the doorway, unsurprised at the scene.

"There you two are," he says, "I leave for fifteen minutes to keep us from starving and this is what I come back to." He tries to sound disapproving, but Bridget catches the half smile out of the corner of her eye when he bends down to take Will and she reaches for a towel. All the moments that used to make her feel dysfunctional have now just become routine, two lives wrapped seamlessly around one William Jones-Darcy.

"He needs another change of clothes," Bridget says, wiping at the drying vomit on her skin.

"This one's lasted all of two hours then. Might be a record."

"Who knew our lives would become endless laundry."

"I'll hire the cleaning lady for an extra shift," Mark says and presses a kiss to her temple. "You go to bed." He smells like crisp autumn air and his nose is cold against her scalp, but Bridget wouldn't want to be anywhere else. To think how differently things could've turned out by sheer fluke.

She squeezes his hand, thinks of how often she's done that lately - after the birth - and lets him go sort Will out for her. These are their evenings, wash cloth showers, indeterminate stains in her hair, and the sound of Mark Top Barrister Darcy's voice muttering softly at a newborn baby. Bridget considers washing her hair, but settles on reuniting with the mattress rather sooner than later instead. Having her first night out with her friends is quite enough excitement for one day.

They'd all met up earlier at a bar for the inevitable post-baby party she'd previously thrown Shazzer and then Jude. Bridget was homesick for all of two minutes before Jude stormed in, hugging her tight with a heartfelt declaration of: "You look amazing, Bridget,." And then Shazzer telling her she has that 'fucking intoxicating baby smell' woven into her skin with the widest grin on her face. It had felt like home as much as home did.

Three shots in, a bottle of Chardonnay sitting on the table, and a Shirley Temple in one hand, she'd teared up over a photograph Tom's future daughter, how they'd all made it so far in life. Not once did it occur to her that anything at all had changed drastically from their early days, chain smoking indoors talking about fuckable men instead of infants, because her friends are still exactly the same for all the years they've covered since. Garbling something into Mark's voicemail under the pink strobe lights, Bridget only thought the decade they'd spent fumbling in the dark had always boiled down to the fact that they loved each other in some undeniable, eternal way, though she can't remember if she told him that.

She decides it doesn't matter when she finds him in their bedroom sniffing at William's matted curls in a pristine three piece suit. If she hasn't, she's got a lifetime to do so, and if she has, it still holds true. Bridget crawls into bed in what she hopes is a clean pair of pyjamas and collapses on the mattress.

"Christ, I am beyond exhausted." She fumbles around with the blanket, her hand touching upon something rough. "Do we have vomit in our bed too?" she asks, not even bothering to open her eyes.

"If we do, surely it can wait until tomorrow," Mark says, voice hushed against the top of their son's head. This version of his calm, collected self is so very different from the one Bridget used to think she ought to unravel. This is peace and contentment, miles away from the repressed silence she used to know for.

Bridget stares for a long moment and tries not to tear up. "Right now anything could wait."

"Do you want him?" Mark asks, his gaze following hers to their son's peaceful features

Bridget only nods, hands coming out from under the duvet to cradle William close. He's warm and half asleep, mouth opening and closing slowly as his tiny hands cling to the fabric of her night shirt. Somewhere in the background Mark Darcy folds his pants and finds a pair of flannel bottoms. _Funny_ , she thinks, _how it used to bother me_.

"We can't keep him here. He might get injured," Bridget says when Mark climbs back into bed, brushing a hesitant finger over the crown of William's head.

"You sleep better when he's here," Mark insists, "I'll stay up and put him down once you're out."

"You don't have to do that," Bridget says, knowing he's got a meeting early in the morning.

"I want to." He turns off the overhead light, leaving only the little lamp glowing on his nightstand.

Lately he's been the one to watch her sleep. He pulls the duvet further up her back and Bridget burrows into the warmth. All the months she has spent worrying - over her son, over her job, over Mark and at times Jack - dissolve into nothingness when she's bathed in love like this. Mark brushes a hand through her hair, he likes doing that, and bridget thinks of how this all started: the fairy wings, all the hurt in his eyes and the toy train tangled in her hair, and many years before that a hideous reindeer jumper.

"You might not want to do that," Bridget says even though she never wants him to stop, "I haven't washed my hair in days and I'm fairly certain there's half a piña colada dried in it."

"I take it you had a good night out then."

"Yes, but I also missed you terribly." She isn't entirely sure if she's speaking to him or the baby, mostly because she isn't entirely sure she hasn't passed out yet. She gets her answer to the second question when Mark moves his hand from her hair into the warmth under the blanket, brushing past what remains of her belly to settle on her hip, and her body stiffens. "Um, I've still got a lot of baby blubber," she says.

"Well, I would certainly hope so. We did just have a baby," he murmurs in return, "Or rather you just had a baby. I mean, you were the one to grow him and birth him. All I did was get my hands bruised and be bitten by you in the process."

She can't help giggling at that, mortified.

"It left a scar, you know," he says, mock accusation in his voice.

"I'm so sorry for that."

"Don't be. It was my pleasure and at least you didn't punch me in the face."

"Only because you didn't tell me to 'think the pain away'. Worst mantra, for the record."

"I'll try keep that in mind."

"Oh, and Mark," Bridget says, a thought floating to her from the back of her sleep addled mind.

"Yes?"

"I promise to cherish the remnants of your wounds once I've slept enough to no longer put the car keys in that cupboard I always mistake for the fridge. It'll be a lasting memory, the scar."

"Two canine crescents to mark the best day of my life," he whispers, "A one-of-a-kind souvenir to commemorate my top person turning into my top people."


End file.
